Missing....

A few people have shown concern that I have not been blogging and I have no excuse other than I just haven't. I have been doing lots of reading and following. Very early this morning I was wide awake, something like 5.00am and so decided that I will show you that I am not really missing and I have actually been doing something.

Firstly. Most of you know that I save scraps of ridiculous sizes and the box(es) are overflowing so, I decided that I would have a little play. I cut several strips of a plain cream fabric 3/4" wide. Then  I picked up the scraps and just sewed them to a cream strip  and just kept adding randomly until I had created a big enough piece. I like the crazy paved feel of this little piece.

All trimmed and bound, measuring 9" x 12". My intention now is to send it on a little adventure and donate it to the Alzheimers Art Quilt Initiative in the USA. (AAQI). Anyone who doesn't know what this is it is a wonderful thing where you can make and donate and buy online mini quilted treasures in memory of a loved one who has or is suffering from Alzheimers. All proceeds from the online auction go to the research for a cure of this terrible disease. I am simply calling this "Elsie" in memory of my mum.

I machine quilted it in the middle of each cream line. Just need to register it now before I can send it.

Having started the Scrappy Trip Around The World quilt I needed an action plan to get going with making more blocks so, my plan was to cut out all the remaining strips ready for some serious sewing. I needed 147 fabrics if I was to make the 72" square version. Hopefully my maths is correct and I have cut enough to finish what I started. This was no mean feat. It meant raiding the stash and digging deep to find 147 fabrics without repeating any. I think I have done it but not too sure that the odd one hasn't crept in. Anyway, mission accomplished and all strips ready for action.

A little progress has been made on Noughts and Crosses. Lizzie at broderie blog said that one of her sewing friends bought this pattern from her and then turned up 3 weeks later with all 42 blocks completed, all hand sewn. Phew! I am in awe. This is my humble offering but I am pleased with it so far. Maybe progress would be quicker on this one if I cut out the blocks en masse.

Had to have a little play at some fabric origami to try out this little hexagon. There was a very pretty bag on Pinterest made from these delightful fancies and it gave a link to a great tutorial so, i had to have a go. Cut from a 5" charm square you will get a hexagon with  2.5" sides, when sewn up it measures 1.25". The button hides the stitching that keeps the points in place.

It feels like it has taken me an eaternity to choose suitable fabrics for the centre of the Hertfordshire Quilt. Having found the bird fabric in my stash I then wondered how I was going to stop this from looking a dark and sombre quilt. I cut out the first row of points and that is where I got stuck. Hmm. I think at this point it was helpful to know what background the circle would sit in and I found the perfect fabric at a quilt show, a very soft peachy pink with a soft grey stripe. Now I think I am getting somewhere. The dotty fabrics were both from my stash and the white fabric has livened it up. Just have to stitch it all now. The mitred pieces are just glued down at the edge. I am sure I have given myself a big headache when it comes to deciding on what comes next but I will think about that when I get there. I really have no idea where this is going next.

 

Well, it is now 7.20am and time to get up, except that I have already been awake for over 2 hours and I need another cup of tea. I promise not to leave it so long next time.

 

Happy Stitching.

 

Love Shirley.

 

p.s. Please go and pay a visit to my lovely friend Stina and wish her a happy belated birthday as she shows her celebrations.



 

Did you guess?

 

The secret sewing was finished in good time and arrived to its new home on the right day to surprise a friend with a special birthday. Well done to both the English and Swedish postal services.  Did you guess what I was making? Does this make it a bit easier? 

 

 

 Add this to the mix. Now can you tell what it is? Remember the frame? Shown in a previous post.

 

 

Ah! There it is.  A house shaped bag. The pattern came from a french magazine but was a Spanish design. The magazine was called Quilt and Country. Cannot read French so had to wing it a bit, actually, a lot but it was worth it. Should you like to make one there is a kit and lots of other lovely house designs. Well worth a look and there is a translator button.

 

 

 

 

I am on a roll this week and have not one but two finishes. The wheelchair quilt is now a proper quilt, quilted very simply with large triangles and a few straight lines in the ditch. Being a dark colour you may/may not see the quilting but the orange binding finishes it off nicely. Job done. It will keep some brave old soldier warm and cosy. The backing is brushed cotton as it apparently stays on the knees better.

 

 

The second finish in a few days no less is this little cushion. It  has been languishing in a pile of UFO's for I don't know how long and this morning I decided that today was the day it would be finished. It is 10" and I am pleased with it. I wonder sometimes why it takes me so long to finish things. For the back of the cushion I used a piece of remnant from my curtains. I love these very soft and pretty greens and it has a few birds too.

 

  

 

On Wednesday we celebrated Wendy's birthday with our usual opening of presents and Kate's husband David has taken on the role of baking the birthday cake. We had carrot cake. Kate made Wendy a lovely note book holder from fabrics that were in a jar of scraps from a previous sale day at one of our quilt shows. It goes to show that inspiration will hit at some point for just the right project and it looks very pretty. Our super organised Rosemary is in Australia and left her present before she went  away and the pretty pink card is one of Rosemary's makes.

 

That is me done for the week. I may have to go and lie down in a darkened room now after all this activity.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.

What's Going On

There has been a little bit of secret sewing going at Stitcherydo HQ so I cannot show you yet what it is. Here is just a little glimpse. Can you tell what it is yet?

Inspiration came from some lovely fabrics from Dotty Dolly and I have completed the first block for the Noughts and Crosses quilt by Trish Harper. If you fancy making one yourself then the pattern can be obtained from Lizzie at Broderie blog.

My mum taught me to crochet when I was a teenager and recently I have taken it up again. The skills are a bit rusty but with the help of YouTube and Pinterest it is coming along nicely. I bought a lovely crochet hook by Rico and it is a delight to use. Being a bit chunkier on the handle it fits better and doesn't make my hand so sore. The yarn is Rico Baby Essentials.

Wandering around my garden was this beautiful pheasant. I have posted before of the wildlife that wander into my garden. I live less than a mile from the town centre and this creature belongs in the countryside so I wonder where he appeared from. He strutted around for a while and then disappeared around the back of the summer house hotly followed by the tabby Tom from over the road. Hope it survived.

I hope you will listen to this YouTube clip that appeared on my Facebook page. A star is in the making and I cried. I like something to move me to tears. It is 4 minutes long but please watch it to the end. Father and daughter Jorge and Alexa Narvaez.  Dad has the most gorgeous voice.

http://youtu.be/cRIT7OzCzBo

If you enjoyed that then there are more on youtube. Some of you may already know about them but they have just come to my radar.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.

Scrappy Triangles

Years ago, and I am talking pre online shopping, Doughty's used to send sample packs of fabric for mail order. When they arrived we used to choose what we wanted and send the sample back to them and the fabric would then arrive back in the post. What to do with the unwanted samples? I just put them in a box, closed the lid and forgot about them.

At one of my sewing groups it was decided to make some small quilts for wheelchair users of a local charity. We had to swap some fabrics and we could add to them accordingly. Being way behind as usual I thought it time to get a move on. I liked the fabrics I was given but they were very pale and I just couldn't think how to use them. Inspiration struck with the box of sample bits. One of the packs was a batch of cut triangles.

I paired them all together and chain stitched them into squares. They now measure 2.5".

My next thought was pinwheels. Having stitched a few together I decided that I didn't like them. So, some unpicking ensued, plus, I realised that they weren't very square so, they all got trimmed. This time they were paired again to another block to make flying geese.

They went together very quickly and were sewn into two strips. Using only what was in my stash I added the red and the grey. Now it needs to be sandwiched and quilted. It measures 36" square.Needs a good press.

A quilt isn't a quilt until it is quilted, right? But, it isn't properly finished until it has a label. Here is the label for Daisy's quilt. I appliquéd a flower over one of the quilted motifs and kept it within the quilting. All the information is in the centre.

In all the grey and gloom that has stricken us for so long this lovely bit of colour found its way in Kate's garden. I love Hellebores.

As I sit here writing this the fog has lifted and the sky is beautiful. Doing a happy dance.

Happy Stitching.

Love Shirley.

A BAFTA Winner

Saturday tea time the phone rang and it was Olly saying would I please give the spare house key to a friend who wanted to borrow his dinner suit. I asked why he needed it and he said that this friend Tom Litten had been invited to The BAFTA's in London. Anyway, key and suit were collected and key returned and I wished Tom fun at the awards. I sat and watched it on tv but didn't really pay attention until suddenly Tom's face popped on the screen. Nothing really registered as I was engrossed in some crochet.  Sarah called in from work yesterday to tell me about Tom.

Tom had auditioned for a part in a short film that was being made as part of the Olympics and was being shown on BBC and in Cinema's. Tom won a scholarship to the prestigious Millfield School for his swimming ability and he is Olympic standard. He got the part. His film won the Best Short Film Category and you can watch the producers accepting the award and honouring Tom for his role.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw3EGQfn-Kk

You can also watch the film but I could not get the link to work so if you wished to see it then the film is called Swimmer.

Last night Tom popped in to return the Dinner Jacket and show off his well deserved BAFTA award.

Sarah and Olly proudly boast that they were Tom's babysitters. ( Tom is on the right and is just 20 years old). Olly and Tom's families are great friends so, how exciting for them and what a great addition to the trophy cabinet. I think we can safely say that this young man is going places.

I know this isn't sewing related but sometimes things happen which need to be spoken about and it is hard not to include life as it is happening. It makes the quilter's life more real.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.

Note:- BAFTA stands for The British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Our New Sewing Venue

In the New Year we, the good ladies of Apple County Quilters changed our venue from the cold, dark and dreary hall that we had been using to the beautiful light and airy Orangery at Nynehead Court in Somerset. Nynehead Court is a private nursing home in a Grade II listed building and the Orangery is part of the set up and hired out to anyone who would like it at a reasonable cost. There is underfloor heating and it stays cosy, when the sun came out the windows high in the roof suddenly opened to let a breeze in.

Opposite the Orangery is a very pretty sandstone church that is part of Nynehead Village.

This is the walkway to the church. Those branches made some interesting shapes and in Summer I imagine it will look very different and provide welcome shade.

The grounds are simply amazing with beautiful manicured gardens and woodland walks. The sun was trying to break through the snow threatened clouds. Notice that there is a little bit of blue sky. It does so much to make you feel better.

Showing you the activity inside.

To my right  Sue was busy cutting up quite a collection of batik fabrics. The observant of you will notice that the rotary cutter is lefthanded.

Sarah is busy making a quilt from the new Jelly Roll book by Pam and Nicky Lintott.

Marie loves all things pretty and is making a Valentine's cushion, her work is always beautifully stitched. Bernina's seem to be the order of the day .

This is Janet Kittow who loves hand stitching and who refused to look up at me.  For the past two exhibitions Janet has won the Viewers Choice Rosette and they were well deserved. Here she is finishing off a past challenge quilt. Better late than never and far better than mine as mine still is not even sewn up.

You can see how nice and light it is in this room and how busy everyone is.

At the other end of the room are nice comfy chairs where we decamp when we eat our lunch and sit and chatter and discuss various proceedings. I adore and wish I had somewhere to put that magnificent painting. It is a giant but looks almost real it is so beautifully painted.

 

We are all so happy to be there in the delightful surroundings and know that it was a good move. Now we sew ther all day rather than the half day that we used to have. Dotty Dolly also use it for their workshops.


It has been a while coming but today I finally finished sewing on the binding for Daisy's quilt. It has taken me  far too long and as this is the smaller one of the two quilts  the bigger one most definitely will be machine quilted, simply. Attaching binding is for me one of those tasks that sometimes is a pain but this time it went on like a dream with no unpicking and with the corners all neatly filled. I used perle thread no.8 in a deep lavender for the daisies and a rose for the other quilting. I am not over keen on the big stitches as  the tightly woven fabrics were not easy to stitch through. However, it is now done and can be crossed of the list. I shall be able to hold my head up high when I next visit the Worn and Washed stand and say that I have at last used up one of her bundles. Yay!

Hope you enjoyed the visit to our new venue.

 

Happy Stitching.

 

Shirley.

Scrappy Challenge

After seeing Stina's beautiful scrappy Trip Around The World blocks resisting became futile. Deciding that the weather forecast looked too unpredictable I chose to stay home and not go to my sewing group today and sew here instead.

Yesterday I cut enough strips to make four blocks and so began the task of sewing them all together. It took some effort and some gnashing of teeth and a bit of unpicking, well, more than a bit of unpicking before block one was declared done. Maybe stopping for lunch would restore energy levels and concentration

No sign of the predicted snow but oh did it rain! It washed all the snow away and it was so dark and gloomy and cold.

Energy levels restored and back to some sewing. In the time that it took me to do one block before lunch I managed to make another three.  This project is addictive and if you think you might like to join in then I guarantee you won't want to stop. You can find the tutorial here. There is also lots of inspiration and lots of other free patterns to tempt you to use up those scraps.  I am thinking that 36 blocks will be enough. We shall see. I am also challenging myself to use only what I have and no repeats of fabric.

As I had cut strips there were bits left over and you know how I like leftovers. Hmmm, what to do with them! With the addition of a cream centre the scraps have become nine patch blocks of 6" and I managed 5 from what I had. I can keep adding to these as I make the other blocks. Apologies for the shadows and lack of editing.

Now I had a growing pile of much smaller pieces. I just sewed them together into a strip. Even the selvages got sewn in. I am sure that I shall find a use for some scrappy strips at some point.

This is what I was eventually left with - what I call scraps. You textile artists out there will find a use even for them but in this case they have gone into the doggy pillows. Believe me, those scraps are small.

 

Whilst I was on a roll and still in the sewing mood I thought I would have a rummage in the bag of scraps that Pat gave me and challenge myself to do something with what was in there. I also had another fabulous challenge from Lori to have a go at. I have changed it a little and this is what I have come up with so far. The only fabric that came out of my own stash was the pink spotty. The next set of instructions come on Thursday so there is plenty of time to join in or even for me to TRY and make another one. I am thinking that this one may be the start of a medallion. Don't yet know. This block so far measures 8.5".

 

I shall leave you with a snowy garden scene from the weekend. By this afternoon it had virtually all gone but at 4pm it suddenly started to snow and at 8.30pm it is still snowing. Mick went out today for a meeting and still is not home. Hopefully he will be stuck at a Travelodge and not on the motorway.

Happy Stitching

Shirley.